Amazon Automation Scams: 5 FTC Cases, One Sales Pitch

"Amazon automation" means paying a company a large upfront fee, usually $30,000 to $125,000, to set up an Amazon or Walmart store in your name and run it for you in exchange for a share of the profits. Between 2023 and 2025 the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued at least five of these companies: Automators AI, Passive Scaling (later FBA Machine), Ascend Ecom, the Ecom Genie group and Click Profit. It alleged false earnings claims in every case, and every case ended in settlements banning the main operators from selling business opportunities. A sixth, Wealth Assistants, collapsed in 2023 and is the subject of a class action.

So is Amazon automation legit? The model as these companies sold it, a passive "investment" in a store someone else runs with a guaranteed result, is the exact pitch the FTC has sued over again and again. Buying and running your own Amazon business is legal and can work. Paying a stranger $50,000 to do it for you, on their projections, has a documented record, and it is bad.

Picture the ad. A man in his twenties stands by a Lamborghini and says his clients' stores are doing six figures a month on autopilot. A slide shows a store dashboard with "$69,320 in last 7 days." There is a buyback guarantee: if you do not make your money back, they buy the store from you. Some ads say the company uses AI to pick products. You have $40,000 in savings earning almost nothing, and a mortgage. You book a call.

Every detail in that picture comes from one of the cases on this page. The companies changed. The pitch did not. Below is the pitch line by line, what the stores really earned, how each case ended, and ten questions that would have exposed every one of them before the money left your account.

Which Amazon automation companies has the FTC sued?

Sources: FTC announcements for Automators AI (27 February 2024), FBA Machine (30 July 2025), Ascend Ecom (23 June 2025), the Ecom Genie case page, and our Click Profit case study. The Automators AI prices and loss figure are from CNBC's 22 August 2023 report on the FTC's complaint.

Each line in that table is an FTC allegation that the defendants settled. None went to trial. The quotes below come from the FTC's complaints unless another source is named.

The pitch, line by line

1. "It's an investment, not a job"

Every company sold the store as a passive asset. FBA Machine called its main programme a "partnership" where "FBA Machine is the CEO and the client is the investor." Ascend promised "passive income." Wealth Assistants' website, Business Insider reported, called e-commerce stores a "new asset class" that could "diversify your portfolio." The Crestos promised "passive investment income."

The catch is in whose name the store sits. It is your LLC, your Amazon account and often your credit card. The company takes a fee and a cut. If Amazon suspends the account, it is your account that is gone.

2. Big numbers with no denominator

• Passive Scaling's sales agents showed "$69,320 in last 7 days", "$1.3 million average gross revenue in first two years" and a forecast that a buyer with $35,000 of working capital "should expect to make over $200,000 in profit after two years."
• Ecom Genie's group promised sales of "$100K+ per month" and "million-dollar" stores. A Lunar salesman told a prospect to expect "$60,000 to $70,000 in the first year," adding "the sky's the limit." One Ecom Genie video featured a "client" claiming "My profits are now around [$]22,000 per month." The FTC says he was an Ecom Genie employee.
• Automators AI promised to teach buyers to make "over $10,000 per month in sales," CNBC reported from the complaint.
• Ascend advertised "How to Make $6000-$9000 Per Month With a 100% Passive Income Generating Etsy Store."

None of these companies told buyers how many stores they ran in total, or what the median store made. The FTC's numbers on that are in the next section.

3. "Our AI picks the products"

AI arrived in the pitch around 2023. The Crestos rebranded as Automators AI and said they would teach buyers to use ChatGPT for customer service scripts. FBA Machine promised "AI-powered software." Ascend said its "cutting edge" AI tools would bring income quickly. Click Profit said it had spent nearly $5 million building an AI "super computer." The FTC grouped Ascend and FBA Machine into Operation AI Comply on 25 September 2024, a sweep against businesses using AI claims "to supercharge deceptive or unfair conduct."

4. The guarantee

This is the line that closes the sale, because it seems to remove the risk.

• Ascend called itself "risk free" because of a "buyback guarantee": if you had not made your money back after 24 or 36 months, it would buy back the store for the difference. One TikTok post: "If you don't make 100% ROI on your upfront you don't pay."
• Passive Scaling told buyers they could ask for a refund if they had not earned back the fee within 18 months.
• FBA Machine promised $20,000 in revenue within 90 days on its $16,000 "Done with You" plan, or it would work for free until it got there.
• Wealth Assistants promised clients their money back if they did not break even in the first year, Business Insider reported.
• Click Profit promised $100,000 in sales in 52 weeks "or you get every single penny of your investment back."

What happened to the guarantees: Ascend's contracts made the buyback conditional, and the FTC says Ascend threatened to cancel it for clients who posted negative reviews. Passive Scaling, the complaint says, could not meet the refund demands of large numbers of unhappy clients. Wealth Assistants told clients in October 2023 it "would not be honoring any buyback guarantees," per Business Insider.

A guarantee is only as good as the money behind it. A company with no assets set aside to pay buybacks cannot pay them when every store underperforms at once.

5. Inventory on your credit card

The fee was only the start. Ascend required buyers to have access to "no less than $15,000" in credit or cash for inventory. FBA Machine advised having $40,000 to $50,000 available. Wealth Assistants sent invoices of about $5,000 to $15,000 for stock, BI reported. The FTC alleged that Empire "typically had its clients pay for inventory on credit cards," CNBC reported, and the FBA Machine complaint says Passive Scaling "often instructed clients to pay for inventory on credit cards."

When Amazon suspends a store, the earnings inside it are frozen. The credit card bill is not. "Some of Defendants' clients were left with large amounts of credit card debt that they were unable to repay with earnings," the FBA Machine complaint says.

6. The gag clause

Automators AI, Passive Scaling, Ascend and Click Profit all used contracts that restricted what buyers could say about them, and the FTC's orders now bar all four from such clauses. Passive Scaling and Ascend, the FTC says, made refunds conditional on buyers deleting complaints and reviews. That is why searching "is [company] legit" often turned up glowing reviews right until the lawsuit.

The worst version was reported by CNBC on 25 September 2024. An Ascend buyer in Missouri who had paid $35,000 and posted a negative review got an email in 2023 containing his home address, Social Security number and his daughter's college, saying he would only be safe if he removed the review. A text to his wife followed with an image of a severed head. CNBC said his experience was "a key piece of the FTC's suit." Ascend's lawyer, Karl Kronenberger, told CNBC the company denies ever threatening customers and tried to resolve disputes "in good faith," adding: "We are investigating whether a competitor of Ascend may be the driving force behind some of the allegations in the case."

7. A new name when the complaints pile up

• Empire Ecommerce became Automators AI in early 2023, after the Crestos sold Empire, according to CNBC.
• Passive Scaling became FBA Machine around June 2023, "while Passive Scaling was unable to meet the refund demands of large numbers of unhappy clients."
• Valiant Consultants became Lunar Capital Ventures in 2022, "with Valiant labeled a scam by many consumers and in litigation." Lunar then disappeared in 2023 and Ecom Genie appeared, with Profitable Automation sending most of its income to Ecom Genie's bank accounts.
• Ascend Ecom operated as Ascend Ecommerce, Ascend CapVentures, ACV Partners, ACV, Accelerated eCom Ventures, Ethix Capital by Ascend and ACV Nexus.

A company that has changed its name twice in three years is telling you something. Search every previous name before you search the current one.

What did Amazon automation stores actually earn?

The FTC had data in several cases, and it all points the same way.

Remember these are sales, not profit. Out of $60,000 in sales comes the cost of the products, Amazon's referral and fulfilment fees, the management company's cut, refunds and the monthly software fee. "In all or most cases, the costs for inventory and Defendants' services consumed most, if not all, of the money Passive Scaling clients realized from their stores," the FBA Machine complaint says.

Amazon suspended stores in these cases mostly for breaking its rules on dropshipping and intellectual property, the complaints say. Mass-run stores selling goods bought from other retailers trip both.

Run your own numbers before believing anyone else's. Pick a real product, enter its price and size into the Amazon FBA calculator, and see what is left per sale after Amazon's fees. Then work out how many sales it takes to earn back a $50,000 fee.

What happened to Wealth Assistants and Ryan Carroll?

Wealth Assistants is not an FTC case, but it is the name many people search alongside these. Its record comes from journalism and a private lawsuit, so everything below is reporting or allegation, attributed as such.

What happened, per Business Insider. BI's investigation by Madeline Stone and Jack Newsham, first published in November 2023, spoke to 16 people who each invested $35,000 to $100,000 with Wealth Assistants and said they lost their money. The company, founded by CEO Ryan Carroll, promised to run Amazon stores for clients in exchange for an upfront fee and a share of gross income, with money back if a client did not break even in the first year. Five of the 16 told BI their stores were never stocked with any products. One client said he took out a second mortgage to pay $55,000. On 13 October 2023 Carroll emailed clients blaming "unprecedented supply chain disruption and store deactivations." Ten days later the company said it had laid off about 75 staff, would shut down by 1 December, and would not honour buyback guarantees, offering a list of other providers to clients who promised not to sue.

BI also reported that one of Carroll's business partners, Max K. Day, had faced fraud accusations going back to 1992, when the FTC got his assets frozen in a case over credit card telemarketing.

Carroll's side. Carroll did not reply to BI's requests for comment. He sent clients a video message saying "rumors" about the company were "not true," that it had to pivot because of changes made by Amazon, and that it ran out of runway as payroll and overhead rose above $1 million a month.

The lawsuit. Clients sued in 2024 in Hough v. Carroll, US District Court for the Central District of California, case 2:24-cv-02886. The third amended complaint, filed on 3 June 2025, alleges Wealth Assistants took more than $50 million from more than 600 people, charged upfront fees of up to $125,000, advertised that stores should make more than $10,000 a month in profit by the end of year one, and used clients' money to benefit its owners. These are allegations; no court has ruled on them. Wealth Assistants' operating company, Yax Ecommerce LLC, filed for bankruptcy on 25 November 2024, which paused the case against it, according to a 9 January 2025 court order.

The settlements. A class notice filed with the court on 19 December 2025 describes proposed settlements totalling $222,000 with some defendants, including $125,000 from Max K. Day and members of his family and their companies, $57,500 from a lawyer and his two law firms, and $15,000 from another company and its owner. The notice says the settling defendants "expressly deny all of the claims and allegations of wrongdoing or liability" and "deny that Wealth Assistants was a fraudulent scheme." The class covers people who bought from Wealth Assistants between June 2021 and November 2023 and did not make a profit. Details are at WealthAssistantsSettlement.com.

We could not confirm from the public court records available to us what has happened to the claims against Carroll himself as of 29 October 2026. If you were a client, ask class counsel, listed in the notice, directly.

How did the FTC cases end?

All five settled with bans, but the details differ.

• Automators AI. All businesses and two owners face a lifetime ban on selling business opportunities or coaching related to e-commerce stores. Andrew Chapman and his company are not banned but are barred from deceptive earnings claims. Assets held by the receiver go to refunds. Amazon told CNBC in 2023 that it had investigated the Crestos and supported the FTC's case.
• FBA Machine. Rozenfeld and his companies are banned from any business opportunity and must hand over financial accounts and proceeds from selling real estate.
• Ascend Ecom. Basta, Leung and the companies are banned from selling any business opportunity or business coaching and must turn over bank accounts and real estate proceeds.
• Ecom Genie group. Young, Baiz and Baiz's companies were banned in March 2025. Mayer and his companies were banned in July 2025 and must surrender Canadian commercial real estate interests, more than $300,000 in other property and about $1.7 million in cash.
• Click Profit. Banned from any involvement with business opportunities; the receiver is still collecting assets for refunds.

In each case the surrendered money is for consumer redress. Check the FTC's refunds page for payment announcements, and ignore anyone who asks for a fee to "recover" your money.

Ten questions that would have caught every one of these

1. "How many stores do you manage, and what did the median one earn last year after all fees?" No company above could give a truthful answer that helped its pitch.
2. "How many of your stores has Amazon suspended?" Click Profit: about 95% at some point. Empire: most of them by October 2022.
3. "Can I see your Business Opportunity Rule disclosure document?" US sellers of business opportunities covered by the rule must give one, with litigation history and references. The FTC says several of these companies never did.
4. "What were your previous company names?" Then search every one with the words "lawsuit" and "FTC."
5. "Who pays the buyback, and from what account?" Ask for the guarantee terms in the contract, not the ad.
6. "Does the contract stop me from posting reviews?" Search it for "disparage." If you find it, stop.
7. "Whose card pays for inventory?" If it is yours, ask what happens to the money when Amazon freezes the store.
8. "Show me the AI pick a product, live, before I pay."
9. "Is your testimonial client a customer or an employee?" Ecom Genie's star "client" was an employee, the FTC says.
10. "What is the minimum I can start with?" If the answer is $30,000 for a store that costs a monthly subscription to open on Amazon, the fee is the product.

Amazon FBA vs Dropshipping: Which is Better in 2026? explains how both models earn. The Ecommerce Empire Builders case study covers the dropshipping version of the same done-for-you pitch.

The honest version of an Amazon business

Opening an Amazon seller account costs a monthly fee, not $50,000. Our Amazon FBA guide walks through finding one product, ordering a small batch and checking fees before you commit. It is slower and it takes your evenings. You also keep the account, the data and the decisions.

Here is the choice. One person hands $50,000 and a credit card to a company with a Lamborghini in its ads and waits for a dashboard to fill up. Another spends $3,000 on two test products, learns why one sold and one did not, and still has most of their savings when the year ends. The first plan has been sold under at least a dozen company names since 2019. Its results are in the court records above.

More case studies from this series: Growth Cave, Air AI and Elias Yoder, the AI influencer behind the Amish channel.